Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1887-07-07
there was no mistake about it, there was the
| unmistakable soapy feel about them.

| L 1duIJ uIOppCu
1--WE are the richrSt men III the whole
world,' said. Monte Cristo is Il fool IL
| US"
I'VE shall flood the market with ola
mOnds" said Good.
Got to get them thero frat,' suggested
Sir Henry.
.'fIeeI hee! heep' went o d Gagool be.
| hind us. as she fl tied abOJt like Il vampire
bat. ''Th"re are the bright stones that We
love, Whire men, as many as we will; take
them, run them through your fingers, eat
them, he p! heel drink them, ha! ha!'
There WAS methmg 50 ridiculous at thai
- hid "a tha i'll "a of eating
AMI drjnkiqg diamonds. that L began te
| laugh outrlg ou5Ir, an example which the
others followed, without knowing why.
| There we stood and Shrieked with laughter
over the gems which were ours, which had
been found for Us thousands of years ago by
the patient delivers in the great hole yonder,
and stored for us by SoiOmon's long-dead
overseer, whose name, perchance, was writ
ten IL the characters stamped on the faded
wax that yet adhered to the lids of the chest.
Solomon never got them, nor David, nor Da
Silvestra, nor anybody else. We had got
them; tn before us were millions of
pounds worth of diamonds, and thousands
of pounds worth of gold and ivory, only
waiting to be taken away.
Suddenly the fit passed off, and we
stopped laughing.
Open the other chests, white men,"
| crOalled GagOol, 'tChcre are surely more
therein. Take your fill, white lords"
| Thus adjured, we set to work to pull up
the stone lids on the other two, first-not
without feeling of sacrilege-breaking the
seals that fastened them.
Hooray! they were full, too, full to the
brim; at least the second one was; no
wretched Da Slvestra had been filling goat
skins out of that, AS for the third chest, it
was only about fourth full, but the stones
were all picked ones none less than tWen-
! ty carats and some Of them as large as
pigeon-eggs. Some of the biggest ones,
| however we could see by holding them up
| TO the light were a little yellow. sotf
cOlOred,' as they call it at Kimberley.
What we did not see, however was the
look OF fearful malevolence that old GagooI
favored us with as she crept crept like a
| snake, out Of the treasure-chamber and
down the passage toward the massive door
of solid rock.
! ::
Hark! Cry upon cry comes ringing up the
vaulted path. 1t is FOulata's voice!
''Oh, Bougwan helpl help! the rock
| fallsr'
Leave go, girl Then"
"Help! help! she has stabbed mer'
BY now we are running down the passage
| and this is what the light from the lamp
falls on. The door of rock is slowly closing
| down; it is not three feet from the floor.
| Near it struggle Foulata and GagoOl. The
red blood of the former runs to her knee,
but still the brave girl holds the old witch,
who fights like wildcat. All! she is free
| Foulata falls and GagoOl throws herself on
the ground, to twist herself like a snake
| through the crack Of the closing stone. She
is under-ah, God! too late! too late! The
stone nipS her, and she yellS in agony.
Down, down it comes, all the thirty tons of
it slowly pressing her old body against the
rock below. Shrek upon Shrek, such as
we never heard, then a long sckening
| crunch, and the door was shut just as we,
rushing down the passage, hurled ourselves
| against it.
1t was all done in four seconds. -
Then we turned to Foulata- The poor girl
was stabbed in the body, and could not J
saw, live long.
"Ah? Bougwan, l dev' gasped the beau.
tiful creature. ''She crept out-Gagool; ]
| did not see her, L was faint-and the door
! began to fall: then she came back, and was
| looking up the path-and L saw her come in
through the slowly falling door, and caught
hor and held her, and she stabbed me, and
! die BOugwan."
Poor girl! poor girlv' Good cried; and
then, as he could do nothing else, he fell to
| kissing her.
"Bougwan," she said after pause, us
Macnmazahn there? it grows so dark l can
not see"
Here l am, Foulata''
'Macumazhan, be my tongue for mo-
| ment pray thee, for Bougwan cannot I'M
! derstand me, and before | go into the dark
| ness-I would speak a word.''
Say on, Foulata, will render it"
Say to my lord, Bougwan, that love
him, and that l am glad to die because /
know that he cannot cumber his life with
me, for the sun cannot mate with the dark
ness, nor the white with the black.
''Say that at times l have felt as though
| there were bird in my bosom, which would
one day fly hence and sing elsewhere; even
now, though l cannot lift my hand, and my
brain grows cold, l do not feel as though my
heart were dying; it is SO full of love that
could live thousand years, and yet be
young. Say that if live again, mayhap /
| SIIdll Sce MN Ill Tie stars, anu LnaU-l Will
search them all, though perchance L should
| there still be black and he would-still be
white. Say-nay, Macumazahn, say no
more, save that | love Oh, hold me
| closer, Bougwan, l cannot feel thine arms
oh! oh?''
| ''She is dead-she is dead?' said Coco, ris-
ing in grief, the tears running down his
| honest face.
You need not let that trouble you, old
fellow said Sir Henry.
! ''Eh" said Good; what do you mean?"
Il mean that you will soon be in posi-
ton to join her. Man, don't you see that
| we are buried aiive?'
For few minutes we stood Mortified there
over the corpse Of Foulata. All the man.
| hood seemed to have gone out of us. The
| first shock of this idea of the slow and mis-
erablc end that awaited Us was overpower-
| in. We saw it all now; that fiend Gagool
| had planned this snare for us from the first.
1t would have been just the jest that her
/ evil mind would have reioced in the idea of